But across the Andes in Chile, an argument has raged for the past few weeks as to whether the centre-right government of Sebastián Piñera has fiddled the poverty numbers to flatter its economic record.The discrepancy involved is small.
Such tensions are nothing new; since the end of the second world war, argument has raged over whether the Holocaust should be commemorated as a unique historical horror, or used as a reference point for current events.
Since Rick Perry's 50 seconds of tongue-tied agony in Wednesday night's Republican presidential debate, argument has raged about just how bad Perry's "brain fart" was compared with the famous campaign flubs of the past.
The skeleton found in a cave in the Neander valley in Germany, in 1856 three years before Darwin published "On the Origin of Species"—was the first to be recognised as that of an "ancestral" human.Ever since then, an argument has raged over just how "ancestral" that relationship is.
Argument has raged on the subject since cemeteries known as tophets – after the biblical account of a place of sacrifice – were excavated in the early 20th century on the outskirts of Carthage in modern Tunisia, and then at other Carthaginian sites in Sicily and Sardinia.
On the Republican side, a long-running argument has raged between neoconservatives and so-called realists, who are more willing to tolerate repressive governments if they advance American interests and preserve stability.
